Portuguese

For Gaida, morning in Damascus meant melodies: waking to the sound of her father’s radio while he shaved, the predawn intertwining calls to prayer bursting from mosques across the world’s longest-inhabited city. Strains of Umm Kulthum and Fairouz rose from radios and stores as horses clopped and cars purred by. The age-old harmonized with the modern.

These sounds shaped the gorgeous and thoughtful Syrian singer’s impeccable musical intuition and velvety yet crystalline voice, now channeled into the stunning live performances and bluesy originals of Levantine Indulgence, a set of songs as rich and subtle as the Fertile Crescent oasis of ancient Levant. With her voice as a common denominator, Gaida has found the soulful sweet spot where complex Levantine rhythms synch up with breezy hints of bossa nova, pounding belly dance beats, and that certain swing found only in jazz.

Gaida’s songs, refined over a decades-long journey, unite the elegance of Arabic poetry and the refined ornamentation of Middle Eastern vocals with the sophisticated urbanite sensibilities of her adopted home. They translate the elevated tarab (ecstasy) into the indulgence of a personal passion that drove the girl from Damascus to defy her beloved father and find her voice, meanwhile moving from intimate clubs to prestigious national venues like the Kennedy Center and major feature films, including Jonathan Demme’s 2008 drama “Rachel Getting Married.”

“For me, indulgence means giving yourself a treat,” explains Gaida, who is now based in New York. “When we perform as a band, we give ourselves the freedom to create something beautiful. We indulge ourselves. If I want to improvise, I improvise. I forget myself.”

Gaida comes by this indulgence honestly, having gotten a primer in Middle Eastern song and improvisation from toddlerhood. “My mother would sit with me in the living room and teach me the song word by word,” says Gaida. “Then I would sing it back to her. That’s really where my musical training came from.” Soon, Gaida was writing down favorite song on slips of paper, tucking them into her schoolbooks for safekeeping. Looking in a mirror to aid her first improvisations, Gaida began crafting her own highly personal versions of Syrian folk classics like “Almaya.”

Damascus itself conspired with Gaida’s warm and musical family, with their large record collection and love of musical get-togethers, to create a sonic foundation for the singer’s future art. Gaida fondly recalls the complicated chance harmonies that appeared as the city’s muezzins performed the calls to prayer.

“The call to prayer has been stuck in my soul since I was a little kid. Four o’ clock in the morning, when Damascus was so quiet, all the mosques were calling for prayer, and you hear the collection of them in the most unbelievable harmonies. Mostly I would hear the mosque next to our house, where they used to improvise from one maqam (melodic scale) to another. And improvise beautifully,” Gaida reminisces. “I think this is where I get a lot of the melodies in my head and why improvisation comes easily to me. You can throw me in any band and I invoke the sounds around me and mix them within me.”

Gaida had a chance to do just that, when her studies took her to Detroit to get a degree in biology. Her pursuit of a career in the sciences was encouraged by her engineer father who was opposed to his daughter becoming a professional performer. “I only know how to sing. It’s the only thing I do naturally. It’s like an itch. An itch that I can’t stop,” Gaida reflects. “When my dad did not encourage me, I felt like I had something wrong with me. Yet it increased my desire to do it. The more someone wants to stop you, the more you want to sing and make music!”

The itch led Gaida to her university’s music school and to a new world of American jazz, blues, and rock bands. Soon, she found herself performing a regular gig at a local Lebanese restaurant. “My eyes were always on the door worrying that my dad might come in. Even though he was in Syria!” she laughs.

Coincidentally, during her first restaurant concert, famous Lebanese poet Maroon Karam happened to be in town and caught the show. He was so taken by her voice, he gave her the bittersweet poem of separation that became “Ghayeb,” featured on the new CD. He also filed a story in the pages of a Lebanese magazine about his adventures in Detroit, praising Gaida as one of the best Middle Eastern voices he had ever heard. Gaida’s nightmare came true. “My family saw the article. Usually when families see something like that they are proud of you. But my mom called and said, ‘What are you doing? You are going to give your dad a heart attack!’” recalls Gaida. “I felt so guilty instead of proud. I stopped singing.”

Yet nothing could end Gaida’s passion for music. Melodies began appearing in her head when she least expected them. When her younger brother Ammar got married, she and her brother and musical collaborator, Adel, wanted to create a song together, but Gaida developed a frustrating case of writer’s block: “It was getting close to the wedding date and I still couldn’t come up with anything,” Gaida recounts. “Adel called me and said, ‘You are not going to do it; I’m going to do it.’ And I said, “No I will do it!” and hung up the phone and started singing a song. I called my brother back and started singing for him. He said, ‘Oh my god, that is it. That is it!’ The siblings recorded “Ammar” in Adel’s tiny bedroom studio in Queens. Breakthrough recordings of “Ammar” and “Ghayeb” from this mid-1990s period form the backbone of their respective final versions on the new album.

The next breakthrough came when she moved to New York and began hanging out in the city’s increasingly vibrant Arabic music scene—one that, like Gaida, is evolving a unique voice and sound. After a concert at Alwan for the Arts in Lower Manhattan, Gaida found herself jamming with oud player Najib Shaheen, which caught the ear of percussionist Johnny Farraj. Soon, Gaida became a fixture at Arabic jam sessions around the city, where she met Iraqi-American jazz trumpeter and santoor player Amir ElSaffar. Gaida would improvise melodies for ElSaffar, and he in turn would create a filigree of jazz-inspired arrangements for songs like “Kaifa Uhibuka.” The two bi-cultural musicians were coming from opposite ends—maqam and jazz—and meeting in the middle.

These new musical connections marked a rebirth for Gaida, who is also a trained speech therapist that works with Arab children and professional vocalists, a field that gave her scientific knowledge to back up her impeccable vocal technique. Her unstoppable passion for music led to a revelatory realization for her father: His daughter had become an amazing and respected artist, as well as a talented health professional. “Now I don’t feel guilty if I’m singing,” Gaida muses. “I did what my dad wanted me to do professionally

She sings the traditional three-song set at storied fado houses in Lisbon, picking her songs right before stepping out on stage in front of the candlelit room, following the call of her heart at that moment. She improvises vocal lines on stage with Mick Jagger in front of packed stadiums.

She grew up hearing her mom sing the serpentine songs of traditional fado while doing the dishes. She got her start singing rock. Now she hangs with Prince, who was so moved by her music that he called her out of the blue one morning, in what she at first took for a prank.

She uses a spare trio of the traditional guitarra (the 12 metal-stringed Portuguese guitar), acoustic guitar, and bass to back her heartfelt voice. She is inspired by the big sounds of Nina Simone and Marvin Gaye to find new ways to explore her love affair with Portugal’s answer to the blues.

This study in contrasts is the stunning Ana Moura, one of fado’s most intriguing young voices. Long beloved and ever flexible, Portugal’s bittersweet musical tradition is transformed by Moura’s velvet contralto and spontaneous soul on Leve-me Aos Fados (Take Me To A Fado House) and in concert this April, as Moura comes to New York, Boston, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, as part of a North American tour.

“Fado is about what’s going on in our souls. What we singers pick in the moment is about what we are feeling, that’s the feeling of the fado house,” Moura explains, describing her approach to performances. “I do that in concert with one or two songs, pick them at the moment according to how I feel right then. I never know beforehand which fados I’m going to sing.”

This spontaneity leaves ample room for innovation and unexpected twists. Though deeply traditional, fado has always been a vehicle for new perspectives and sounds. “We listen to other kinds of music, too, and when something new comes into the fado, it’s normal,” notes Moura. “Musicians bring new arrangements, new things to the traditional fado, but it’s very subtle and organic.”

As part of this process, ancient melodies become settings for new lyrics, and Ana puts new words—her own or those of well-known contemporary lyricists like Jorge Fernando—to old tunes, as fado musicians have for generations. Because "fado is all about feelings" as Moura puts it, these new perspectives reflect the modern state of relationships.

“There are lyrics I love from the older generation but I can’t sing them because I wouldn’t react to a situation like that,” Moura smiles. “Back in those days, women were more submissive. Now we are not; we’re independent. We have our jobs and freedom. In matters of the heart, we face our feelings in different ways and the ways we tell our story are different.”

Moura’s own story is one of outrageous fortune. Fado, after all, means “fate” in Portuguese. Though she had always been drawn to fados, it was not until her early twenties that a chance meeting with several musicians at a bar where friends urged her to sing a fado led her eventually to one of Lisbon’s most famous fado houses. Her newfound acquaintances invited her to a party, the owner of the fado house fell in love with her singing, and she found herself performing nightly.

“I was recording a pop and rock CD but I would sometimes sing a fado, with an electric guitar,” Moura laughs. “Then I started to work at the fado house and fell in love with the atmosphere. You stand right next to the audience and sing from your soul in the same beautiful building where famous poets once wrote.”

The young singer was quickly taken in by the older generation of musicians. There’s a belief among fado musicians that fadistas are born, never made. There's a certain something that can't be articulated or taught; it can only be invoked, like the swing in jazz or that perfect sense of the blues.

Moura, from her accidental start as a fado singer, was tapped by the usually reticent and reluctant elder fadistas she sang for as a born artist. “The older musicians sometimes don’t accept young people very well,” says Moura. “Their circle can be very closed. I was very well accepted, though.” She was so overwhelmed by this endorsement that she switched gears, dedicating herself to the music she had loved growing up. Even the producer of her rock album told her to record her fados instead.

Yet fate had more in store for Moura, including rubbing musical shoulders with some of the world’s pop luminaries. When The Rolling Stones came to Portugal, they wanted to catch some real-deal fado. They came and listened to Moura, who nervously eyed Mick Jagger until she got swept up in her song. To return the favor, they invited her to join them for dinner and their concert.

Little did she know that the invitation included a spot on stage, a turn of events that took Moura completely by surprise. “Mick said, ‘I sing four keys higher than you.’ I had to improvise a new melody to the song. I was supposed to go have dinner and watch the concert, but not sing with them!” Moura exclaims. After running through the song twice, the show got started. “At first I was so nervous. I forgot what I had worked out during our rehearsal. But then I started singing, making things up on the spot,” as the audience went wild.

Moura’s voice and interpretation of fado not only wowed rock’s elder statesmen; it brought pop icon Prince to Paris to hear her. “I got a phone call really early in the morning,” Moura recalls with a smile. “It was Prince’s bodyguard, but I thought it was a musician friend from New York. I was really shocked when he said he was going to put Prince on the phone.” The musician had heard one of her albums and become fascinated with her music and voice.

Beyond all the celebrity and praise—Moura has won prestigious awards, played at her native land’s most important venues, and toured extensively since that fateful song at the bar—Moura remains passionately devoted to the fados that changed her life. “Fado is to be felt and each person has the freedom to feel and to use the song in their particular way,” Moura muses. “Sometimes we try to describe too much. I want to leave everyone the freedom to feel fado for themselves.”